Saturday AFTER ASH WEDNESDAY

 

Re-creating Encounter  

        

Jesus came to call sinners. It is they that need him, not so much the just, the righteous. It is the sinners who need healing. We are among them, and so we need healing. The Pharisees considered themselves just, but there was little mercy in them; their hearts were dried-up, and it is mercy that Jesus wants, not sacrifices. Jesus comes to encounter Levi-Matthew. Just a call, and Matthew leaves everything behind: his desk, his past. He is a new man, created anew by Christ. He lives now for the future. His converted heart will turn to others too, as he becomes an apostle. In this eucharist Jesus comes to call us and to change us; he sits at table with us, as he did with Levi-Matthew.

 

First Reading: Isaiah 58:9-14 

 “This is the kind of fast day I’m after:
    to break the chains of injustice,
    get rid of exploitation in the workplace,
    free the oppressed,
    cancel debts.
What I’m interested in seeing you do is:
    sharing your food with the hungry,
    inviting the homeless poor into your homes,
    putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad,
    being available to your own families.
Do this and the lights will turn on,
    and your lives will turn around at once.
Your righteousness will pave your way.
    The God of glory will secure your passage.
Then when you pray, God will answer.
    You’ll call out for help and I’ll say, ‘Here I am.’

 “If you get rid of unfair practices,
    quit blaming victims,
    quit gossiping about other people’s sins,
If you are generous with the hungry
    and start giving yourselves to the down-and-out,
Your lives will begin to glow in the darkness,
    your shadowed lives will be bathed in sunlight.
I will always show you where to go.
    I’ll give you a full life in the emptiest of places—
    firm muscles, strong bones.
You’ll be like a well-watered garden,
    a gurgling spring that never runs dry.
You’ll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew,
    rebuild the foundations from out of your past.
You’ll be known as those who can fix anything,
    restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate,
    make the community livable again.

 “If you watch your step on the Sabbath
    and don’t use my holy day for personal advantage,
If you treat the Sabbath as a day of joy,
    God’s holy day as a celebration,
If you honor it by refusing ‘business as usual,’
    making money, running here and there—
Then you’ll be free to enjoy God!
    Oh, I’ll make you ride high and soar above it all.
I’ll make you feast on the inheritance of your ancestor Jacob.”
    Yes! God says so!

 

Gospel: Luke 5:27-32 

After this he went out and saw a man named Levi at his work collecting taxes. Jesus said, “Come along with me.” And he did—walked away from everything and went with him.

Levi gave a large dinner at his home for Jesus. Everybody was there, tax men and other disreputable characters as guests at the dinner. The Pharisees and their religion scholars came to his disciples greatly offended. “What is he doing eating and drinking with crooks and ‘sinners’?”

Jesus heard about it and spoke up, “Who needs a doctor: the healthy or the sick? I’m here inviting outsiders, not insiders—an invitation to a changed life, changed inside and out.”

 

Prayer

Lord our God, merciful Father,
when you call us to repentance,
you want us to turn to people
and to build up peace and justice among us all.
According to your promise,
let us become, with your strength,
lights for those in darkness,
water for those who thirst,
rebuilders of hope and happiness for all.
May we thus become living signs
of your love and loyalty,
for you are our God for ever. Amen.

 

Reflection :

To be on the side of Jesus

During the Jubilee year of mercy in 2016, Pope Francis launched a book with the title ‘The Name of God is Mercy’. The book was a result of an interview with Pope Francis by an Italian journalist. In the interview, the Pope talked about the logic of God which is nothing but a logic of love that scandalises the pharisees and the teachers of the Law.
God’s logic of love is reflected in everything that Jesus says and does. Jesus reveals a God who doesn’t wait for us to be perfect or blameless before engaging with and loving us. Jesus engaged with people as they were, in all their frailty and weakness. That is how the Lord engages with each one of us.

Jesus scandalizes the doctors of the Law, the scribes of the Pharisees, by sharing table with people who were considered sinners by the society. Sharing the table or having a meal together meant, accepting one another as belonging to the family or friends. We share the meal with people who are close to us – our family or friends. In sharing table with tax collectors and sinners Jesus presents the face of God who wants to be in communion with us just as we are. It is that experience of God’s loving communion with us that will empower us to become the person God wants me to be and to live the life God calls me to live.

In this season of Lent, the Church offers the call of Levi as an invitation for us to look into our lives to see how merciful and empathetic are we in our life in the Church community, in the society and in our families. Do we look at our brothers or sisters and label them as good-for-nothing, outcasts and sinners and reject them from our circles? The Lenten fasting calls on us to fast from spreading rumours that label people as bad, fast from gossiping and instead nurture the virtue of empathy mercy and love.

Remember, the people who regarded themselves as the insiders – chosen people of God – the Pharisees and teachers of the Law – had become the outsiders; while the so called outcasts – the sinners and tax collectors – became the insiders who had the privilege to dine with Jesus. On which side are we?

 

Video available on Youtube: To be on the side of Jesus